Venezuela's secret plot to sell banned Syrian oil in U.S.

A demonstrator makes her feelings known about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday outside the 172nd Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Vienna, Austria. According to emails and documents, Syria and Venezuela sought to evade international sanctions via a Russian company.

Photo: Akos Stiller

Syria and Venezuela plotted in recent years to evade international sanctions on Syria through a secret deal to transport its crude oil through Russia to the Caribbean.

The previously undisclosed plan aimed to sell Syrian oil at a big discount to Venezuela through a Russian shell company, which would send it to Aruba for refining and distribution to gas stations in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to dozens of emails, documents and interviews.

The scheme, which hasn't been executed, indicates the extent to which the two pariah nations are willing to go to evade international rules and antagonize global powers. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, written off repeatedly during the past six years as hundreds of thousands of his citizens have been killed in a brutal civil war, has clung firmly to power.

For Venezuela, the plan forms part of an international agenda initiated by the late socialist President Hugo Chavez that has made the country an ally of Iran and Cuba. Now under the leadership of his embattled disciple, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela is desperate for cash after years of government mismanagement drove oil output to a three-decade low, plunged the economy into a depression and fueled weeks of deadly nationwide protests.

The Syrian initiative underscores Venezuela's international ambitions, indicating that its current crisis could have repercussions far beyond its shores.

It's unclear whether the plan is still under consideration. A key player, Wilmer Ruperti, a Venezuelan oil trader who grew enormously wealthy through his closeness to the country's leadership, acknowledged in a phone interview his participation but said he no longer has a role in it. Syrian officials approached him in early 2012 during a party at the Syrian Club of Caracas.

What followed was a chain of communication between Syrian and Venezuelan officials that included several executives of Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA, or Petroleos de Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the talks. One note from Ambassador Ghassan Abbas urged a Venezuelan official to come to Damascus to discuss volumes, terms and conditions of the deal.

In the phone interview from Caracas, Ruperti said the oil deal wasn't meant to make a political statement. "It was a logistical solution to make a lot of money," he said.

PDVSA did not respond to requests for comment. A Citgo official said the company "is not considering and will not consider Syrian crude imports to supply the Citgo Aruba Refinery."